The Law: The War Tax Protesters

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would
not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and
enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.

Henry David Thoreau's refusal to pay his poll taxes, which would have
supported the U.S. invasion of Mexico, earned him a night in jail in
1846. Today, tax resistance is once again becoming a lively
philosophical issue. The best-known recent convert is Jane Hart, wife
of Michigan Senator Philip Hart, who announced last month that she...